RIGA, July 31 (Xinhua) -- An artist by the pseudonym SOME1 said Tuesday he triggered a false alarm in the Latvian capital Riga by placing warnings about an invasion of venomous spiders at public transport stops this week.
Posters warning about a venomous spider species reportedly invading Latvia amid increasingly hot weather had appeared at transport stops in Riga on Monday.
They featured a picture of the spider Tegenaria Agrestis, a warning that a bite of the critter can be lethal and an advice to call the Latvian Health Inspectorate or 112 emergency number if someone came across the arachnid.
Authorities were quick to dismiss the alert as sheer disinformation.
The artist issued a written statement on Tuesday claiming "full responsibility" for what the law enforcement authorities saw as an administrative offense.
SOME1, who did not reveal his real name, said he did this purely for the sake of his art and without any political motives.
Although SOME1 could not be reached personally, his representative Raivis Maksis Malnacs told the media that the artist wanted to see people's reaction to such information and that he staged the false spider alert as an introduction to his forthcoming exhibition.
"Art has its own ethics," the artist said through his representative when asked about the moral aspects of his stunt.
Representatives of the Riga municipal police said that the man who pasted the posters at the transport stops was captured on CCTV and that if caught, he might face a fine of up to 210 euros (246 U.S. dollars) for spreading the false alarm.
